Obama Demeans the Presidency to Depress Us

Mar 11, 2014

RUSH: Obama was on a Web comedy show. The show is called Between Two Ferns, and what it is, it’s an Internet talk show. It is hosted by a comedian by the name of Zach Galifianakis. It’s a parody of talk shows and essentially what it does is it gets A-list guests in there and roasts them in the form of an interview. It strips away all the pomposity and it is these people being treated — I don’t know why do it, but they show up and they get mocked and laughed at and insulted, and Obama showed up at this thing. Obama was a guest.

Now, if you wonder why people are losing respect for the president — and I think people are. I think what’s happening here is actually devastating to the office, and it began with Bill Clinton. It began with Bill Clinton. There was an arrest and a restoration when George W. Bush was there, but the office of the presidency has taken a big hit dignity-wise. And with Obama constantly on TV and constantly campaigning and making jokes and yuk yuks about inconsequential things, but doing it to build a bond between himself and the lowest-common-denominator voters, the low-information voters, it’s an unseemly, sad thing.

So he shows up on this show called Funny or Die. Funny or Die is the website. The show is Between Two Ferns. I have a couple sound bites from this show that I guess came from this morning. Now, this is a guy who doesn’t have time for national security meetings. He doesn’t have time to get a briefing from a CIA guy, doesn’t have time for all that, but he’ll go do something like this. This is a six-minute skit, and like every other guest, he gets insulted by the host. It’s a parody, it’s a joke, everybody’s in on it, you know what’s gonna happen when you show up. Nobody’s blindsided.

The whole purpose of this was to plug HealthCare.gov. The whole reason for going on this show, because this is supposedly what the low-information crowd has glommed onto now. If I were Jon Stewart, I’d be worried ’cause this is currently what’s hip, this show. And so here are a couple sound bites of Obama with the comedian Zach Galifianakis on Between Two Ferns.

GALIFIANAKIS: I have to know; what is it like to be the last black president?

OBAMA: Seriously? What’s it like for this to be the last time you ever talk to a president?

GALIFIANAKIS: Is it gonna be hard in two years when you’re no longer president and people will stop letting you win at basketball?

OBAMA: How does it feel having a three-inch vertical?

GALIFIANAKIS: It’s three-inch horizontal. Where are you planning on building your presidential library, in Hawaii or your home country of Kenya?

OBAMA: Zach, that’s a ridiculous question.

GALIFIANAKIS: So which country were you rooting for in the winter Olympics?

OBAMA: Seriously? I’m the president of the United States. What do you think, Zach?

RUSH: Okay. (interruption) The last one, which team are you rooting for, you think that’s a good question? Okay, Obama agreed to go on this, and it sounds like Obama’s lines are written for him here. This thing sounded scripted to me. I’ve never watched this. I’m just hearing the sound bites for the first time today. I know it was lifeless, but isn’t it supposed to be? Or does it have life with other A-list celebrities? Anyway, here’s the next bite.

GALIFIANAKIS: Do you go to any websites that are dot-coms or dot-nets, or do you mainly just stick with dot-govs?

OBAMA: No, actually we go to dot-govs. Have you heard of HealthCare.gov?

GALIFIANAKIS: Here we go. Okay, let’s get this out of the way. What did you come here to plug?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think it’s fair to say that I wouldn’t be with you here today if I didn’t have something to plug. Have you heard of the Affordable Care Act?

GALIFIANAKIS: Oh, yeah, heard about that. That’s the thing that doesn’t work. Why would you get the guy that created the Zune to make your website?

RUSH: Now, remember, Obama’s in on this. He knows full well what he’s doing. He’s not purposely being insulted. (interruption) Well, that’s the thing. Pick any president you have respect for, put ’em in this. I know it’s a changing world, folks. I know the media’s constantly expanding, but there are just certain things that presidents never deigned to take a step down and do. So here is this guy openly mocking Obama with Obama’s permission, and it’s all to celebrate and to promote HealthCare.gov.

Now, I just saw a tweet, a tweet just went out saying that the majority of sign-ups to HealthCare.gov today are coming from this show. Whoever tweeted it out meant it as a compliment. Whoever tweeted it out meant to say that this was a home run performance by the president, that there are all kinds of people now going to HealthCare.gov to sign up, like we believe this. I don’t, by the way. You know what I believe? I believe the number of cancellations. And you know what that number is? It’s well up to six and a half million people.

Six and a half million real people have had their insurance plans canceled despite these delays, despite putting off the implementation, six and a half million people have had their insurance canceled. Some of them are cancer patients. Some of them are really sick. Some of them aren’t, but some of them are. I don’t believe the number they claim to sign up. There wouldn’t be the panic. Look, if this were going great guns you wouldn’t have Democrat senator after Democrat senator running away from it. The Democrats that are up for reelection are running as far away from HealthCare.gov and Obamacare as they can. And some of them are making no bones about it.

Some of them are actively campaigning against Obamacare, Democrats are, Democrat senators up for reelection. There’s nobody that can make me believe that whatever is happening with Obamacare, HealthCare.gov, is good and overwhelmingly optimistic and growing by leaps and bounds. You want to tell me that appearing with this kind of an interview on this show spawned and inspired massive visits to HealthCare.gov, massive enrollment?

I’m sorry. That’s just not the way things happen, but you’re supposed to accept it and believe it and be depressed. You are supposed to be depressed ’cause you’re supposed to think, “My God, what’s happening to my country?” If a contrived, lifeless show which treats the presidency as though it is just filth is the way presidents inspire people, “Oh, my God, it’s over.” You’re supposed to stop opposing; you’re just supposed to accept it.

Folks, they play mind games with you. I am telling you, you’ve got to stand up and hang tough and don’t fall for these mind games. They’re trying to dispirit you. They’re trying to make you think there’s no point in fighting back. They’re trying to make you think the country’s lost. They’re trying to make you think there’s nothing you can do. We had our first caller today, “Rush, I hear your optimism, but I don’t know how we can save it! We’re so much in debt.”

He was speaking substantively, now, but what they want is everybody thinking that. They want you giving up, folks. This political party, the Democrat Party — and particularly this Regime — has as its primary motivator the elimination of opposition. They do not want to have to do intellectual battle. They will lose. They do not want to have to debate and win. They don’t have to go to the arena of ideas.

They don’t want their health care put out there and subjected to a debate in front of the American people. They want you laying down. They want you giving up. They want you caving. They want you thinking it’s hopeless and going about your life and certainly not enjoining any opposition because it’s pointless. They want you to be depressed over this. They love running around, beating their chest, “We won! We won; you lost!”

That’s exactly how this administration looks at over the half the country, “You lost, and we get to do to you whatever we want!” That’s exactly their mind-set. So this is pathetic, and this effort to make it sound like this appearance (which you just heard the highlights of), is responsible for an overwhelming, brand-new number of sign-ups or enrollments at HealthCare.gov? I realize there are some people who might have watched this and said, “Oh, wow, this sounds cool! Let’s go do it.”

But it’s nowhere near a number that’s gonna overcome their cancellations or save this. There’s nothing happen here today that’s gonna make the Democrats running for reelection start embracing it, and if you want to find proof of how things are, just take a look people that need to get reelected and what they’re doing the regarding this issue. They are running from it, and what’s the Regime doing?

The Regime is running for it. The Regime won’t even implement it! They’re delaying the implementation. It is so bad, so harmful, so painful, they are delaying the implementation now until Obama’s gone. A, to save his reputation and image, and B, to protect the Democrat Party from what otherwise would be an overwhelming landslide. Gayle King commented on this, CBS This Morning.

They played sound bites of Obama appearing here on Between Two Ferns, and this is Gayle King talking to Norah O’Donnell and Bill Plante about it.

KING: He seemed a tad irritateeeed!

O’DONNELL: Yeah.

KING: Those are questions you would never hear Bill Plante ask.

O’DONNELL: (giggling)

KING: Bill Plante, of course, is our White House correspondent. So, Bill, why did the president agree to do this? And he did seem irritated.

PLANTE: No, I think that was part of the game, and I would ask a question like that if I had a chance.

KING: (laughing)

O’DONNELL: (laughing)

PLANTE: This just isn’t your father’s TV world. The president’s trying to reach out to a new audience.

RUSH: Bill, what’s stopping you from asking a question like that? What do you mean, you’d ask a question like that if you had the chance? Are you not in the White House press corps? Well, I don’t understand. You have access to this guy every day. In fact, CBS just got rid of a reporter who asks questions like this, Sharyl Attkisson. They got rid of her, even before her contract expired. She is gone.

You ought to see The Politico writing about that with so much glee. The right’s favorite reporter at CBS bites the dust. Not even any pretense anywhere that there’s objectivity. The one supposed right-wing member of the CBS News Press corps — one — leaves or is forced out, and the rest of the media getting their yuks over it. The right’s favorite reporter at CBS is out, Sharyl Attkisson.

She felt scared a couple times, intimidated. She thought her computers were hacked by the Regime. She said that. But Plante’s got it right here. That thing was scripted. You can tell that Obama’s reading his answers off the prompter like he always does, trying to reach a new audience. This is what I mean when I refer to the decline of the presidency as an institution with stature, something that you always look up to.

Now it is used as, “OOh, this is how you get this! It’s how you really do real America.” That’s bogus as well. I’m telling you, they want you feeling down in the dumps and depressed. They want you giving up. They want you thinking it’s over. They want you thinking there’s nothing you can do to stop this. They don’t want any opposition. Now, from what I’m told, Obama’s appearance got 3.3 million views. That’s not all that great. Justin Bieber got 16 million on this show, for example. Natalie Portman got 15 million views. Obama got 3.3 million.

There’s nothing earth-shattering or great shakes here, folks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Do you think Vladimir Putin might take another country into the Soviet orb while Obama is appearing on Between Two Ferns? I mean, why not? I mean, that’s the way you have to look at this.